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Wednesday, 19 July 2017

In this brief essay, I examine how public policy as a
commodity under a business model, in which the state operating in accordance
with neoliberal policies has evolved toward a more authoritarian orientation in
the early 21st century. Whether in developing countries with high
levels of public and private sector corruption, or in the US, the manner by
which public policy has legitimized social oppression with remarkable ease
reflects the ubiquitous hegemonic culture. The media and mainstream
institutions have convinced public opinion to accept oppression which public
policy creates and perpetuates as the norm, categorically rejecting the
assertion that the institutional structure determines society’s fate. The
promise of public policy is to achieve social integration, but the result for
an increasingly larger percentage of the population is institutional
oppression. Whereas the theoretical goal of public policy is to integrate the
public into the mainstream while harmonizing social relations, in practice it
is a catalyst to social division and hierarchy in society.

Introduction

“Public policy” refers to government carrying out a set of
policies on domestic and foreign affairs on behalf of the public to promote and
safeguard its interests and perpetuate its welfare as stipulated in the social
contract. This is only theoretically true and no government would deny doing
otherwise in carrying out policy. Governments and their apologists narrowly
define both the term “public” and “policy” in accordance with specific class
interests they promote.

When English philosopher and father of Western liberal
political philosophy John Locke argued that government must serve “the people”
he was in fact referring to people who are property owners (assets in all
forms); the greater the capital (assets) the greater the voice they would have in
the political arena because it was assumed capital makes people “responsible”
in society. According to Locke, (Two Treatises on Government, 1689) public
policy must be made by a strong legislative branch dominated by elected
officials meeting property qualifications as do those voting for them. Public
policy is the domain of capitalists because they have a stake in society thus
there is a correlation between wealth and public policy because the
justification for the creation of civil society is to protect property which
includes life for those who own no assets.

From education and healthcare, from living standards and
freedoms ranging from abortion rights to civil rights, public policy and its distortion
and manipulation in its implementation stage, or its absence when needed to
further public welfare impacts peoples’ lives more than they realize. Public
policy reflects the class structure, traditions, a country’s history and
external influences, all presented to the public as the embodiment of public
welfare. The role of the state has been to guide the course of the market
economy and act as an arbiter using regulatory policy, but also fiscal,
monetary, trade and investment policies as levers at its disposal.

The contradiction between the promise of public policy
articulated as “objective” and “democratic” intended to improve the lives of
all people calls into question not only its legitimacy but the role of the state
as a force which is acting on behalf of the capitalist class to maintain
unequal income distribution. (Jurgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of
the Public Sphere) In the early 21st century, the very low level
of confidence people have in their elected representatives and low level of
voter participation in many countries, among them the US, is a reflection in
the level of public confidence in policies that elected officials carve out for
society and the realization that the state is a catalyst for perpetuating and
advancing class interests.

While some people question the legitimacy of public policy
precisely because it is class-based, many entertain illusions on a wide scale in
accepting its legitimacy as “objective” despite the fact that it is the legal
mechanism of institutional oppression. The social safety net (welfare policies
from social security to unemployment benefits), which emerged during the Second
Industrial Revolution in the late 19th century and accelerated in
some countries during and after the Great Depression of the 1930s, is empirical
proof that public policy at its core caters to capital and only when liberal
bourgeois democracy is threatened with social upheaval are there concessions to
placate and co-opt the working class.

Apologists of capitalism defend public policy that
perpetuates and legitimizes oppression, arguing that social inequality is
natural, or the fault of the individual or even a virtue with which society is
blessed! The preponderance of empirical evidence regarding social inequality perpetuated
by public policy cannot be glossed over by ideological justifications,
political rhetoric or by directing the masses to seek salvation in the
afterlife because this life is only temporary and sinful.In the late 18th century, French thinker
Emmanuel Joseph Sieyes (What is the Third Estate?) and the
American Federalists (John Jay. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and the Federalist
Papers) analyzed the conditions of what constitutes legitimacy in a
modern constitutional society placing juridical perimeters on unfettered
political authority, asserting basic rights for citizens. In post-Revolutionary
France and US – the Atlantic democracies that inspired other social revolutions
and national independence movements - the capitalist class was the intended
beneficiary of constituent power, not the entire population as those who led the
revolutions and their apologists claimed in an effort to forge a broad popular
consensus.

As the foundation for the legitimacy in an open society,
informed consent and policy formation project the image of an all-inclusive integrative
process as a goal of the social contract. In practice, however, manipulated
consent and policy formation are presented to the public as collective goals
for the welfare of society (a form of corporatism that the state and capital
promote) when the goal is to serve narrow interests rather than society as a
whole. This is not to suggest that there are no differences between overtly
corporatist regimes such as Portugal under Antonio Salazar (1932-1968) or Spain
under Francisco Franco (1939-1975), both dictators for life, and the
neo-corporatist elected regimes of Japan and South Korea, or the US that has
elements of neo-corporatism. However, the chasm between the theory promising
integration and reality of social division exposes the naked truth behind the
mask of consent theory and public policy as nothing more than tools of social
conformity. Given the political trend toward authoritarianism operating
under oligarchic rule behind the façade of democratic regimes, there is a rise
of rightwing populism across the Western World reflecting tensions of intense
competition for capital accumulation between and within the core capitalist
countries. This is more evident in the early 21st century than it
has been since the interwar era during the rise of Fascism when capitalism was
also experiencing a crisis after the First World War and when the Great Powers
were scrambling to rebuild their economies.

Headed toward the legitimacy of authoritarianism under the
thin veil of an open society where the catalyst for conformity has long been
external enemies, Western liberal democracies mired in contradictions of the
political economy that exacerbates divisions are operating in practice as
authoritarian regimes buttressing the market economy through fiscal policy,
corporate subsidies, government loan guarantees, and bailouts. The election of
Donald Trump in 2016 afforded greater legitimacy to the corporate welfare state
under authoritarianism as an extension of traditional conservatism both in the
US and around the world.

Even by the standards of bourgeois institutions such as the
UK-based “Intelligence Unit” of the Economist magazine, conducting
quantitative and analytical studies of democracies around the world, there has
been a reduction of “full democracies” from 20 to 19 in 2016, representing a
mere 4.5% of the world’s population. Interestingly, the US is among the flawed
democracies” group ranking just below Japan and slightly above Costa Rica and
Botswana. When social justice is either a peripheral issue or not even on the
radar screen of a country’s public policy, it is difficult for the apologists
to distract the public by pointing to foreign and domestic enemies of democracy
that the system itself undercuts.https://www.eiu.com/public/topical_report.aspx?campaignid=DemocracyIndex2016

Public Policy in Core (Patron) and
Periphery (Client) StatesArticulated by a liberal ideology, the dynamics of public
policy include the economic system, social structure and cultural influences
ranging from religious to secular in the milieu of each country’s history and
traditions. The Western World’s liberal ideological foundations rest in the
liberal political philosophy of John Locke. Influences from a variety of 18th
century thinkers, including Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire, and Adam Smith to David
Ricardo and John Stuart Mill in the 19th century among many others
including from Socialists have also played a role in shaping public policy. The
contradictions or lack of coherence in public policy as it evolved owing to
changes in society is largely the result of lack of political consensus on
achieving the common goal of strengthening the social order under capitalism
under inherent pressures for capital accumulation on a world scale with class
struggle at the core of the system as the lower classes strive for upward
mobility amid downward pressures from capitalism.

From the English Revolution of 1689 to the American (1776) and
French (1789) Revolutions, political developments marked the triumph of the
capitalist class as dominant in the political arena seeking to foster public
policy to preserve and strengthen its social status that it identified with the
‘national interest’ as the elites define it. As Western institutions evolved to
reflect the dominance of the capitalist class, the political elites sought to
harmonize social relations by conducting public policy that theoretically
afforded the “opportunity” for upward social mobility to the expanding middle
class which industrialization created; this even as slavery was a widespread
institution and serfdom persisted in Russia until 1861. Differentiating itself
from the aristocratic caste system (minimal mobility) that existed under the
old regime of monarchical rule, the bourgeoisie in control of the state offered
social mobility and “equality of opportunity” which itself became deceptively
identified with social equality despite the highly stratified class-based
society.

Rapid changes in industrial capitalism and Western colonial
expansion as a means of securing global markets and raw materials to sustain
economic growth and military power resulted in social changes with a rising
lower middle class and working class demanding political integration into the
institutional mainstream through public policy that reflected their interests.
This was often manifested in social uprisings, as was the case with the
revolutions of 1848 across continental Europe, and several revolts at the end
of the 19th–to-early 20th century in Eurasia, Asia and
Africa directed against imperialist powers and the comprador bourgeoisie (national
capitalists whose fortunes are linked to foreign business interests), which determined
public policy for the colonies, semi-colonies, and dependent countries.

At the core of world capitalism, northwest Europe eventually
joined by the US and Japan, adopted paternalistic attitudes toward the
colonies, semi-colonies and dependent territories, creating ideological justifications
based on superiority of the colonizer vs. innate inferiority of the colonized. Given
these ideologies, which included Social Darwinism among others, colonizers
arrogantly assumed they were in the preeminent position to determine public
policy for the inferior and backward invariably non-white people they had
subjugated. This was as much the case of English or French colonies, as it was
the case of the US relationship with the Philippines and Cuba after the
Spanish-American War.

Despite the increasingly multi-polar structure of the core
capitalist countries with the rise of China in the early 21st
century, the legacy of 19th century imperialism is felt across the
globe to this day under globalization. This much is evident in the integration
policies of northwest European powers and the US using NATO to enforce and
expand integration geographically as far as possible after the collapse of the
Soviet Union, even if it entailed perpetuating the old Cold War while launching
a global war on jihadist terror. Carrying the imprint of militarism, public
policy reflected as much not just in the US and the core countries, but also in
the periphery.

Economically and militarily integrated with the US, northwest
Europe, and Japan, developing countries subordinate policies to the patron
state’s wishes on which they depend in every domain from trade and labor
relations to foreign and defense policies. As an integral part of the
patron-client model relationship between the Great Powers and periphery (client)
states, policy-making in the client state is largely an extension of the patron
state intended to accommodate the latter in an unequal relationship in
everything from terms of trade to defense issues. This is as much the case with
the US and its Western Hemisphere client states as it is with Germany and most
of the Balkans and Eastern Europe.

In comparison to the era of European colonial expansion
from the 15 to the 19th century, public policy became more complex after
WWII because international organizations such as the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) use stabilization loans to impose policy at all levels on periphery
countries. Similarly, the World Bank uses development loans while the WTO
imposes terms of trade rules on its members. Moreover, the G-20 members
essentially make policy decisions that impact the entire world but intended to
benefit large capitalist interests in core countries. Whether in foreign
affairs, defense, infrastructural development, fiscal policy or health care
policy the people exert public policy influence are corporate executives and
their lobbyists, not ordinary working and middle class people who simply
validate the choice they are presented with at the ballot box during elections.

Public policy is also compromised by the level of official
and private sector corruption which varies from very high in some African and
Latin American nations to relatively low in the Scandinavian region. In some
cases, including Russia many of the former Soviet republics, Indonesia,
Philippines and Sub-Saharan African countries the informal economy accounts for
at least one-third of GDP and up to half, if we include the illegal activities
of narcotics trafficking. Globally, it is estimated that about 15-25% of GDP is
part of the subterranean economy, while at least 7% of US GDP or just under $1
trillion is attributed to the underground economy. Large scale corruption can
only be carried out by large public and private sector actors; that is to say,
by multinational banks and corporations and by states providing protection to
such institutions.

The very nature of corruption beyond the necessities of the
informal economy in many developing nations is a deviation from public policy. Nevertheless,
the nexus of private-public sector corruption only strengthens elite interests
in whose control capital rests. The hundreds of billions of dollars in fines that
governments have imposed on banks and financial institutions from 2007 until
2017 and the revelations of money laundering operations not just in Panama and
Cyprus, but even in the US and Germany with large financial institutions (Deutsche
Bank as a prime example) involved implicate political and business elites.
While it is difficult to explain and justify why such deviations from
“rationalized capitalism” take place if public policy is effectively working
for all people, the political and economic elites steadfastly defend the system
on the basis of the “bad apples” theory and the fact that some such “bad
apples” are caught proving the system works.

Legitimizing Oppression through Public
Policy

Because of the glaring contradiction in what the existing social
order promises and what it delivers, public policy is the catalyst to
legitimizing oppression and fostering authoritarianism under the guise of
liberal democracy which provides equality of “opportunity” while exacerbating
social inequality. This has been the case not just in the US but globally with varying
levels of legitimized oppression, depending on the type of regime and specific
government in power. The relatively homogenized nature of public policy in so
far as it pertains to capital and labor reflects the integrative nature of the
capitalist economy.

Whether in an advanced capitalist country or an
underdeveloped one, in the highly integrated capitalist economy everything is commoditized,
including human beings. Public policy falls in the domain of commodity intended
to promote market sectors either through enacted legislative measures or by
corrupt means beyond legal perimeters that nevertheless project the appearance
of legality. The state determines legality while mainstream public and private
institutions determine what constitutes legitimacy. Recognizing that policy transcends
the social contract because of the manner it is carried out in practice, the
result is legitimization of oppression because public policy determines
societal norms that neither the elites and in many cases the oppressed
question.

As Franz Fanon noted observing Algerians under French
colonial rule, the oppressed internalize institutional oppression and blame
themselves for any calamities they suffer, in many instances wishing to emulate
their oppressors. Not just in colonial times when white colonizers tried to
present institutionalized racism as a ‘science’, but even in the early 21st
century working and middle class people under austerity measures, which are
intended to strengthen large corporate interests and the banks, blame themselves
for their minor infractions from the system’s mainstream while excusing the
system that gave rise to distortions and disequilibrium in the economy. They readily
accept capitalist paternalism and assume that even greater loyalty and
conformity would yield fruits of the system. To this day, the political and
business elites, the media and various academic experts present historic
arguments justifying systemic exploitation resulting in social division and
alienation as ‘natural’. http://www.frantzfanoninternational.org/Fanon-and-the-Epidemiology-of-Oppression

The hegemonic culture uses not just the media but all means
at its disposal including the educational system and religious institutions to
inculcate conformity to the status quo into the minds of people. Whether in the
domain of public health, labor market or any other sector, if people suffer
calamities it is the fault of the individual not the market system that the
political and social elites present as “free” when in reality it is very much
buttressed by the state and would collapse if the state withdrew its support
mechanisms in everything from fiscal and monetary policy to trade and labor
policy. This is the triumph of manipulated consent rather than informed consent
on which the political class justifies policy formation it presents as
objective as though it was handed down on sacred tablets by God.Because institutionalized social oppression is legitimized
and the dissident becomes the villain in the eyes of the law, public policy
cannot possibly be at fault for victimizing the marginalized poor because it
carries the institutional stamp of legitimacy. In their struggle for power, competing
bourgeois politicians and political parties blame each other as does the media
and business critics do the same, but rarely is there a critical assessment of
the role of the capitalist system that the political and social elites hold in
reverence.

The goal is to convince society that no matter the level of
exploitation by the state-supported private sector, the political economy must
remain above criticism; there must never be any discussion of system social
change. Therein rests the seed of social oppression legitimized by public policy
and the elites propagating for it.If
there is a flaw in society, the elites and the media attribute it to free will
and individual choice as guiding principles in peoples’ lives not because of a
decadent institutional structure. Hence, it is hardly a surprise that the same
liberal elites theoretically espousing liberal democracy promote
authoritarianism to maintain the status quo while many among the middle class
and even workers entertain the illusion that they are “free” and live in a
“democracy”.

Public Policy under Trump’s Rightwing
PopulismLong before Donald Trump took office under a cloud of
controversy regarding allegations of Russian interference in the presidential
election, there were numerous articles and books debating whether the US was
authoritarian, and to what degree in comparison with similar regimes. American
society was founded by wealthy slave-owning colonists who framed a constitution
on which public policy is based to further bourgeois interests. Trump emerged from
the existing framework of American business and political elites that he
flamboyantly represents. Hardly an aberration as his opponents portray him
because his flamboyant and often crude style in articulating policy, Trump
reflects not only the American business elites but a segment of society as the
electoral results indicated.

Reflecting not just ideology, but strategy intended to make
unpopular policymaking easier, Trump and Republican politicians have cultivated
informal ties with ultra rightwing groups and individuals as part of a strategy
to forge political alliances for a wider popular base in order to secure power
and further redistribute wealth from entitlement and social programs to the
wealthiest Americans, while bolstering defense. Trump’s not so veiled
references of Fascist and racist rhetoric is unbecoming of bourgeois politicians
who claim to represent a pluralistic society, preferring to conceal public
policy intended to strengthen capital behind traditional conservative or liberal
rhetoric with public policy results amounting to roughly the same thing.

The results of public policy affecting living standards are
hardly different between centrist and conservative politicians as much in the
US as in the Western World. Given this reality, a rightwing populist politician
like Trump has afforded greater legitimacy to authoritarianism by appealing to
prejudices about ethnic and religious minorities and women. Frustrated with
liberal elitism marginalizing the conservative white middle and working class,
and willing to equate populist rhetoric with public policy favoring the masses
when nothing could be farther from the truth, a frustrated and dispirited
segment of the population embraced the authoritarian leader who projected
strength, a trait some among the masses hope it would trickle down to improve
their lives or at least make them feel that they are part of something more
powerful than themselves.

This inevitable development arises from the crisis of
liberalism where socioeconomic polarization precedes political polarization and
the prospects for downward social mobility are more realistic than for upward
mobility. The phenomenon of rightwing populism is just as true in Europe
struggling with downward socioeconomic mobility and unemployment rate double
that of the US. The more dangerous form of authoritarianism is not that of
French neo-Fascist politician Marine Le Pen who is open about her platform, but
of the creeping authoritarianism concealed behind neoliberal and austerity policies
presented as ‘democratic’.

If public policy under “liberal”, in point of fact
neo-liberal, governments have only widened the rich-poor gap and accounted for
deteriorating conditions not just for workers but the middle class as well,
then one solution within the capitalist system is to move toward
authoritarianism and embrace cult of personality leaders promising the moon
even if they never deliver it. The other option vehemently opposed by the
political and economic elites is to embrace Keynesian policies that would have
a negative short-term impact on capital accumulation but strengthen and
rationalize capitalism under a pluralistic society already operating under an
oligarchic system longer term. Leaning heavily toward neoliberalism and
globalization and against populism, the corporate media makes sure to propagate
in favor of populist authoritarian politicians, stigmatizing Keynesian
politicians as Socialists or Communists. Regardless of steadily declining
living standards, people ideologically conditioned to fear not just Socialism but
anything Keynesian which Roosevelt made popular in the 1930s, turn to the right
politically because the hegemonic culture has conditioned them to accept
authoritarianism more readily than democracy.

Public policy manifests itself in declining living
standards forcing a record 44 million Americans or about 28% of the active
labor force, to have a side job while just 20 billionaires own more wealth than
the bottom half of the population. A study in 2014 examining various empirical
aspects of society and concluded the US was an oligarchy because public policy
carried out was tilted heavily toward the rich. "A proposed policy change with low support among economically
elite Americans (one-out-of-five in favour) is adopted only about 18% of the
time," they write, "while a proposed change with high support
(four-out-of-five in favour) is adopted about 45% of the time. When a majority of citizens disagrees with
economic elites and/or with organised interests, they generally lose. Moreover,
because of the strong status quo bias built into the US political system, even
when fairly large majorities of Americans favour policy change, they generally
do not get it. http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746

In charge of a cabinet composed of billionaires and
generals living in the glory of Pax Americana weaker because of China global
role, Trump’s refusal to place all of his assets into a blind trust while using
his position to enrich his family has raised a debate about the role of public
policy as a marketable commodity for sale to the highest bidder. Not just Saudi
Arabia, the major financing source for jihadist terrorism since the 1980s, buying
billions in US defense equipment only to destabilize the Middle East and
maintain authoritarian regimes in power, but other governments have no
illusions that the US economic nationalism is a cry for reducing the chronic
balance of payments deficit by having surplus countries spend more in the US. The
Saudi purchase of US weapons, in effect purchase of US foreign policy in the
Middle East, provides but one of many illustration of public policy as a
commodity.http://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-americas-ultimate-crony-capitalist

In the process of commoditizing public policy, the personal
fortunes of those in the administration become more favorable as a result of
trade and investment policies no different than in many other countries,
especially developing ones. Corporate welfare that transfers income from the
lower classes to corporations comes with a price tag in the form of political
contributions, but also rewards in the form of influence for securing contracts
for well-connected companies. Given such a description, one would assume that
this is how public is carried out in Russia and Kazakhstan or in Egypt and
Indonesia, anywhere in the developing world but in America.https://mises.org/library/crony-capitalism-america

The US has similar characteristics with authoritarian Third
World regimes where crony capitalism thrives and public policy is but an
instrument to further those within the inner political and socioeconomic circle.
It is true that the constitutional and political foundations of public policy
in a pluralistic society differ considerably from the manner public policy is
conducted in an authoritarian society. Nevertheless, the lines have become
increasingly blurred in so far as the results are concerned affecting peoples’
lives, and even billionaires and corporate executives admit as much. With 80%
of the US population burdened with debt, and a steady downward socioeconomic
mobility since the early 1980s, combined with curtailed civil rights and
diminished commitment to social justice, the US has been assuming greater
characteristics of a developing nation and it is the reason that the Economist
Group ranks it a ‘flawed democracy’.http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-developing-nation-regressing-economy-poverty-donald-trump-mit-economist-peter-temin-a7694726.html

Interestingly, American political, business and social elites
want the public to believe that public policy as a marketable commodity characterizes
only Third World nations in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, or corrupt
regimes in Russia and former Soviet republics. The deeply ingrained ideology of
“American Exceptionalism” accounts for the pervasive superiority complex in
American society – the US is different, unique and exceptional carrying out a
mandate of greatness for a higher purpose from Divine Providence. Objective
metrics on the economy, social programs, education, health, poverty rates,
treatment of minorities, political system, among 60 other indicators that the
Economist Group analyzed run contrary to widely-held illusions of identity and
point to a society that has some common characteristics with Third World
countries.

Hardly unusual for politicians to use their office for
private gain, at least once out of office, some have become multimillionaires
like Bill Clinton providing insider influence through the respectability of the
Clinton Foundation that doubles as a charitable organization and actually does
some good work for those outside the mainstream of society. With Trump’s
election, not just stylistics like a video where the president is wrestling a
man with a superimposed effigy of the CNN news logo, but the use of the office
as a tool for private gain and using public policy as a commodity to be sold to
the highest bidder are hardly different tools from what any Third World
dictator would employ. With very divisive rhetoric and policies that strike at
the heart of pluralism, Trump seems to have brought authoritarianism out into
the open, dropping all pretenses and showing the real character of American
society that would embarrass previous presidents. Public policy for sale is
only one of the Third World characteristics of America concealed behind the
thin veil of ‘liberal democratic’ and pro-business rhetoric that the media and social
elites employ as a daily mantra.

Public Policy as a CommodityIn 193 A.D., the Roman Empire’s Praetorian Guard offered the
throne to the highest bidder, Didius Julianus, a very wealthy patrician. Julianus
bought the throne and ruled for about nine weeks before a civil war erupted and
ended Julianus’ reign. The offer of the throne to the highest bidder coincided
with structural economic problems and marked the beginning of the long decline
of the Western (Latin-speaking) part of the Empire that ultimately collapsed in
the fifth century after successive Barbarian invasions. If one focuses on
personalities and procedural aspects of what took place in Rome in 193, it is
easy to overlook the larger issue of very serious structural problems.
Similarly, if we focus on the cult of personality (Trump) and daily minutia of individual
scandals and process, it is easy to see the larger issue that these are
symptoms of American decline.

Whereas Julianus paid the Praetorian Guard for the
privilege of governing the Roman Empire, modern elections are more
sophisticated in concealing the commodity aspect of political leadership. Financing
sources for modern political campaigns and the inordinate influence of
corporate lobbies are not nearly as crude as the Praetorian Guard openly offering
the highest public office for a price to the highest bidder. Whether in ancient
Rome or modern America and other nations for that matter, public policy under
the pretense of public consent and legitimacy is not carried out with the
social contract in mind as stipulated in the Constitution. Rather it reflects
the very narrow elite interests that make political contributions to retain
their privileged status in society. When billionaires invest millions either
directly, through political action committees, lobbying firms, or other
organizations, they are investing for a return on their capital.

Not that Europe, South Korea, Japan, South Africa or the
rest of the world is much different than the US regarding the manner that public
policy is carried out and its dynamics. However, in the US, an imperial power
with a global military and economic presence, politicians, the media,
businesses and most academics make a point of praising their institutions as
“democratic” and present public policy as an expression of the public’s will
when they know better than anyone that public policy is a marketable commodity
intended to promote certain sectors and companies. This has been the case from
the era of mercantile capitalism when Absolute monarchs issued monopoly rights
for commodities and trade routes until the present when the state uses much
more subtle policy mechanisms - government guaranteed loans, corporate
subsidies and fiscal policy - to manipulate and manage the economy.

In certain cases, the goal of public policy as an appendage
of the private sector is part of a larger strategy to achieve inter-sector
balance and prevent one sector or an oligopolistic one from undermining the
entire economy as was the case of the railroads in late 19th century
US when the Progressive Era began. A regulatory regime as envisioned in the
late 19th century under the Progressive presidents (T. Roosevelt, W.
H. Taft, and W. Wilson, 1900-1920) was intended to harmonize capitalist
interests and minimize disequilibrium resulting from predatory capitalism that
would cause the sort of deep recession that took place in the 1890s. When the
Great Depression of the 1930s hit and completely disabled the private sector’s
ability from serving society’s needs, the New Deal state became even more
interventionist to hasten the health of the economy through public stimulus
until the private sector became sufficiently healthy as to permit the state’s
retreat once Harry Truman took over in 1945.

Beginning with Truman in the early Cold War, public policy was
linked to geopolitical goals. The US deliberately sustained trade deficits to
strengthen capitalism in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Western Europe as part
of military alliances. Reflected in domestic policies of conformity and
conservatism, Cold War policies created a backlash among those elements that
viewed society as authoritarian and racist rather than democratic. Social
conflicts manifested themselves in identity movements, from civil rights to
gender equality to religious rights, some of which public policy would address
in piecemeal manner, sidelining social justice as an all-encompassing issue.
Democrat and Republican politicians embraced identity politics as the basis for
public policy, but only as long as those groups embraced the goals of
capitalism and its institutions. Both political parties and the media present
identity politics as evidence of pluralism and democracy when in fact they are
another distraction from the class struggle and an obstacle to social justice.

ConclusionUnder capitalism, public policy reflects the value system
based on materialism, hedonism, atomism, and a marked absence of communitarian
values or empathy for humanity as a collective community. As it promotes self-indulgence
and identity with material possessions, public policy finds expression in the ubiquitous
commercial popular culture. All mainstream institutions including the mass
media, TV, and cinema subordinate social justice to individual material success
as the ideal for all to achieve. This entails alienation not only of the social
groups on the periphery of the institutional mainstream that are structurally
locked out, but even of those within it that can never satisfy the hedonistic
vortex which separates them from the other and from the collective society.

The existential emptiness that Jean-Paul Sartre discusses
in Being
and Nothingness is but a bourgeois realization of existing completely
alone without a sense of a collective purpose in the age of secularism; of
acting as a means to establish an identity against the background of a materialistic
society where institutions encourage and reward atomism a rather than social
integration and public welfare. For a segment of society, this existential
alienation leads to authoritarianism that only further encourages social
exclusion and elitism, but fulfills the existential void as the individual
identifies with something greater than himself that projects power.

Too preoccupied with the daily grind of survival to be concerned
with bourgeois existential alienation, workers face a dilemma of whether an
authoritarian regime demanding greater conformity is able to deliver a higher
living standard than a liberal one guaranteeing lifestyle choices but not much
else. Beyond the question of the bourgeois “maximization principle” leading to
happiness as it promises or creates more problems and greater unhappiness in
society, there is the issue of public policy as a vehicle for social mobility
and social justice. (Hilke Brockmann and Jan Delhey, eds. Human Happiness and the Pursuit
of Maximization: Is More Always Better? (2013)

In a public opinion poll with the ranking of countries with
the most negative emotions about their lives, Iraq ranked at the top in 2013,
followed by Iran, Egypt, Greece, and Syria, while African countries rank among
the lowest in the world. In fact the top ten “least happy nations” have
political regimes that are not tolerant of diversity as in the case of Middle
East countries, or they face monetary austerity as in the case of Greece and
Cyprus where rapid downward social mobility is only one result of
externally-imposed public policy. OECD surveys dealing with the issue of “life
satisfaction”, which is actually a better method of measuring responses than using
the term “happy”, southern and eastern European countries under austerity
policies (economic contraction) rank the lowest – all suffering from
externally-imposed policies. Northwest Europe, where national sovereignty entails
greater autonomy in policy-making, ranks highest.

While no one is surprised about the rankings of Africa,
Middle East, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, one may be surprised that the US
ranks at about the same level as Mexico in similar surveys. That the US
demonstrates characteristic similar to Third World countries ought to alarm its
elites and policymakers especially since all major mainstream institutions
(IMF, World Bank, OECD) are predicting continued downward social mobility for
the US as China claims greater global market share in the 21st
century.

As long as the corporate media and politicians point to
evidence of broader national progress in GDP statistics and the stock market in
which a small percentage of the population is invested shows advances, the
general population is willing to postpone a better life for the present in
exchange for a better future because “trickle-down economics” may eventually
drench the masses from above like manna from Heaven. Capitalism promises the “possibility
of riches” for those who conform and embrace the system and people dream and
aspire to something better for the future. Therefore, they suspend disbelief of
their own realities as they identify with something larger than themselves
although they are on the periphery of the mainstream. They identify with the
millionaire and billionaire, aspiring to become him or at least hoping for
salvation through him, just as those with religious faith believe in salvation
in the afterlife.

Through the media, the political and socioeconomic elites keep
people perpetually immersed in the illusion of a seemingly ‘objective’ public
is reality that will trickle down. Meanwhile, governments offer increasingly
militaristic and police-state solutions to enforce conformity at home and keep
client states in line abroad. The state delivers the message that the status
quo is best suited for society and that any change would be detrimental, even
if the majority of the people view existing public policy resulting in further
social disintegration from the mainstream and a departure from bourgeois
democracy.

As geographic and sociopolitical polarization which
reflects the growing socioeconomic chasm continues to widen and more people are
left in the periphery of the mainstream, authoritarianism will become more
entrenched in the institutional structure; even as some aspects of pluralism remain
with regard to cultural and lifestyle diversity issues. The mass media,
billionaire-funded think tanks, the political and social elites will intensify
their efforts to present authoritarianism as ‘democracy’, and they demand that
people must embrace it there is no better alternative, least of all systemic
change to redefine the terms of the social contract.

The Trump era brought into the forefront aspects of
American “Third Worldism”, not just in the highly divided political arena
reflected in sharp divisions in society, but across society and by all
econometric and socio-metric comparisons between the US and other advanced
capitalist countries. Not just US domestic policy, but foreign policy is also
up for sale as long as it furthers defense and other industries. If US public
policy is increasingly mirroring what takes place in the Third World, then
could authoritarianism be as far off as many want to believe?

The image of power embodied in authoritarian politics is
mesmerizing to many people even if their own material lives remain stagnant and
social justice takes a back seat. Machiavelli was right that people worship
power, at least the projection of power even if it is non-existent. This is
universal, at least the image it projects, even if that entails that in reality
society regresses in every respect and the lives of the majority deteriorate
under authoritarianism. Desperation among the masses only reinforces the
irrational tendencies and drives people to embrace regimes pursuing public
policy contrary to their interests. Grassroots efforts to raise consciousness
by stripping away the many layers of deception surrounding public policy and
the institutional mainstream takes a long time but there is no better starting
point for humanity to achieve humane-centered progress and social justice.

"A
gripping, passion-filled, and suspenseful tale of love, betrayal,
political and religious intrigue, this novel entices the reader’s
senses and intellect beyond conventions. Slaves to Gods and Demons
takes the reader through a roller coaster enthralling journey of
personal trials and triumphs of a family emerging vanquished and
destitute after World War II.

Narrated by a young boy, Morfeos, modeled after the Greco-Roman pagan
deity of sleep and dreams, the book reveals the soul of a people trying
to ascertain and assert their identity while rebuilding their lives and
recapturing the glory of a lost civilization.

Seeking liberation from restraints of time, social conventions, and
binding traditions, the deity of dreams provides the conformist and the
free-spirited characters in the novel with venues for redemption that
are mere paths toward illusions. Exploring the complexities of human
relationships shaped by priest and politician alike, the novel rests on
the central theme that life is invariably a series of illusions, some
of which are euphoric, most horrifying, all an integral part of daily
existence.

Striving for purpose amid life’s absurdities after the destruction of
western civilization in two global wars, the characters in Slaves to
Gods and Demons struggle between holding on to the glory and grandeur of
a pagan legacy and the Christian present shaped by contemporary
secular events in Western Civilization."